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Johannesburg - President Jacob Zuma needed more
information before responding to findings on his Nkandla home, his office said
on Thursday after he missed a deadline to report to Parliament on the matter.

"President Jacob Zuma is still seized with preparing
the report to the Speaker on the upgrades at his Nkandla home, as undertaken to
the Speaker of the National Assembly," Zuma's spokesperson Mac Maharaj
said in a statement.

"The president will submit his report as soon as
possible after receiving all the necessary information required for the
preparation of the report."

Zuma had undertaken to give Speaker Baleka Mbete a
comprehensive report on the outcome of three separate investigations into state
spending of about R246m on his private home in the KwaZulu-Natal hamlet by the
end of Wednesday.

Pressed for further details on the delay, Maharaj said:
"It would appear one of the issues is the final report of the Special
Investigating Unit [SIU]."

The SIU recently confirmed that its final report had been
delayed.

Last week, the head of the unit, Vas Soni, told MPs this
was partly because two people implicated had failed to respond to questions,
partly because investigators were only given access to Nkandla on 3 July, more
than six months after the start of the probe. He declined to name the two
people.

Maharaj said he believed the SIU's report was due soon,
and that Parliament had been informed of the president's decision to defer his
response.

Major
controversies

Public spending on security upgrades at Nkandla turned
into one of the major controversies of the Zuma presidency as costs escalated
and it emerged that the project included a swimming pool, an amphitheatre, and
chicken run.

In March, Public Protector Thuli Madonsela found Zuma had
derived undue benefit and should pay for some of it out of his own pocket.

Zuma declined to respond to Madonsela's report in full
within the required fortnight and said instead he would wait for the SIU's
findings.

On 5 July, the ANC chief whip's office said Zuma had
received the provisional SIU report and would provide Mbete with a final and
comprehensive response within 30 days.

Soni told Parliament's justice portfolio committee last
Thursday it pained him the SIU report was being held up, but that he could not
indicate when it would be completed.

Zuma signed a proclamation on 18 December giving the SIU
the go-ahead to investigate "intentional or negligent loss of public
money" at Nkandla.

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